


Dark Night of the Soul

by wefewwehappyfew



Category: Twin Peaks
Genre: F/M, Me filling many gaps, References to spanish religious mystical poetry of the 16th too FTW, Underappreciated characters FTW, tis the power of headcanons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-05
Updated: 2017-03-05
Packaged: 2018-09-28 11:47:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10099244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wefewwehappyfew/pseuds/wefewwehappyfew
Summary: The two deaths of Annie Blackburn, her lives in between and a constant search for the peace that comes with finding oneself.





	

 

  
_I remained, lost in oblivion;_  
_My face I reclined on the Beloved._  
_All ceased and I abandoned myself,_  
_Leaving my cares forgotten among the lilies_  
  
**_St John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul_**  
  
  
Death was supposed to be a relief. And yet, what you find after it, is nothing like what they describe. At least it wasn't for Annie the first time. It was a short stay, her first time in the Red Room. But as the dancing Man said, in that voice that seemed out of a recorder.  
  
"I shall see you again soon."  
  
\------  
  
Annie remembers waking up in the hospital and Norma holding her so strongly that she wondered if it was to ensure that her soul would not try to leave ever again. She remembers tears. From Norma's part and hers too.  
  
Norma did not say a thing the day Annie told her she was going to become a nun. She only told her. After all, Mum would not listen, busy as she was with other things. And her sister  was the only friend Annie had.  
  
It was Norma who brought her there, and embraced her again.  
  
"Whatever happens" her sister says, holding her close "If you decide to return to Twin Peaks, the doors of the Double R will be always open for you. You are my sister and I will always love you."  
  
\-----  
  
In the convent, Annie finds peace. It is not an easy path, but as Mother Joan puts it, if the path is easy, it is never worth treading.  
  
Mother Joan was at first look, a stern woman. A tall and wiry thing that would walk in bare feet most of the time and would barely eat enough to sustain herself during the day, she turned out to not hold the same standards for others.  
  
"He has a plan for each one of us, and thus we find Him in different ways. What works for me may not work for you, and viceversa. But we will help you as best as we can, my dear child, so you find Him too."  
  
And as Mother Joan did not judge her, neither did the rest of the sisters. It felt liberating, to go from the looks of the people of Twin Peaks, that made her feel even worse about her choice. No, here, she felt normal, and it was good.  
  
It was at this time, that Annie also discovered poetry.  
  
Well, if she were to be more precise, she had already discovered poetry prior to her first death. This time it was different, though. The poetry that Mother Joan lend her spoke of a relationship with God that seemed almost sexual, of a passion and a despair that made her heart beat in ways she had never thought were possible.  
  
(She was not a virgin,  and she had known despair enough to die. But it was different. And she wondered if she could ever love the way those poets and poetesses loved)  
  
But even if those thoughts invaded her mind every now and then (there was a particular stanza from a poem of St John of the Cross that haunted her in the best possible of ways), life went on at the convent, without much difference from what could have been in the outside world. She even managed to make friends among the sisters.  
  
Until one day, Mother Joan asked Annie one very important question.  
  
_"What do you truly want to do with your life, my dear child?"_  
  
And the truth was that Annie did not know yet.  
  
Life in the convent was good, providing her the calm and the routine she needed. She was managing to rebuild herself. But maybe to rebuild herself completely, she had to leave, and she had to live.  
  
Maybe, as Mother Joan said, He had decided this was not the place where He would meet her.  
  
\----  
  
When Annie returned to Twin Peaks, it seemed ages had passed, but also that they didn't. Even with the changes brought by the death of Laura Palmer, the town still stood, and probably would for much longer than what everybody expected.  
  
And of course, there it was, the Double R.  The only place where Annie had seen her sister be truly happy, the place Norma practically created from scratch, and the only place that she could call home. Maybe it was a good start.  
  
(Maybe, come the time, Annie could call it home too)  
  
It is welcoming. Of course, Norma is. But she does not truly expect the kindness she receives from Shelley. It quite feels as if she had known her all her life when they had barely crossed a word before.  
  
(She later discovers that Shelley is trying to rebuild herself too from the ruins her husband left.)  
  
\-----  
  
When she sees Agent Cooper, looking at her as if he had received some kind of holy vision, she feels at first as if she wants to hide.  
  
(She is far from holy. And this is only going to hurt them.)  
  
That might be why she ends up being so honest and so defensive when he asks her the next day how she is. But it's strange how he makes her feel at ease.  
  
Perhaps it would not hurt to let him into her heart.  
  
Dale is not like that other man before her death, after all. He is kind, and understanding, and from what Norma tells her, he is also brave. He has managed to solve the murder of Laura Palmer all while surviving a gunshot, among other things.  
  
And he seems quite strangely smitten with her.  
  
(Maybe he saw the holiness in her that she had long forgotten)  
  
He does not teach her to live, not in the way she has come to expect from everyone.  
  
(Do this. Don't do that. Smile. Don't tell the truth about how you are feeling.)  
  
No, he is not a teacher and does not fancy himself one. He simply shows her the world, its possibilities and joys.  
  
And for a man who has seen and felt so much sorrow, he sure can make her happy. He reminds her what she already knows but has buried deep within her heart.  
  
He reminds her of the joy of actually living, and that there lies the secret of rebuilding yourself.  
  
He convinces her of even trying in the Miss Twin Peaks contest, in the hopes that the prize could help her in her search for her new life.  
  
(Perhaps she has found Him, after all.)  
  
\--------  
  
The second time she dies, her soul sinks and she wants to scream in despair.  
  
_It was not supposed to be like this._  
  
_It was not supposed to be like this._  
  
_**No**. Not him. Let him **go**._  
  
_You must be mistaken. I am alive. I am alive. And so is he._  
  
_We do not belong here._  
  
_Let us go._  
  
**_NO. HE BELONGS HERE. FOREVER._**  
  
\-------  
  
In her third life, everything is different again.  
  
Including Dale. So different that Annie is  sure he is not the same man he was before the Red Room. There is something in the deep of his eyes that screams of an evil she knows she has seen before.  
  
She is not the only one.  
  
There are some that meet in secret, in the dark of the night, knowing that they have to help her. Norma and Shelley are there. So are Big Ed, and Sheriff Truman, and Doctor Hayward, among others.  
  
They decide on helping her escape to Canada, under a different identity. He would not be able to reach her there, not at least without breaking some laws and his cover.  
  
(They all know that that man is not the Agent Dale Cooper they have known and loved.  They all know Annie is in danger not only because of that. But because of the news Doctor Hayward gives her. She is with child.)  
  
She says goodbye to all of them a few days later, not even processing completely the thought that she is never going to see them, or the town of Twin Peaks, again.  
  
" _You are my sister_." Norma's words echo in her mind. " _And I will always love you_."  
\---------------  
It has been a long time since someone called her Annie.  
  
To everyone in her neighbourhood (a lovely and welcoming little place in the suburbs of Toronto), she has been Mrs Selwyn, or Joanne if you were either close enough to her (and she could count with the fingers of one hand the ones who had that privilege.)  
  
Mrs Selwyn was a librarian, a widow who never spoke of her husband or her life previous to moving to Toronto, leading to all sorts of speculations she cared naught for silencing. She also had a daughter, Delia, a sweet little child who was her spitting image, except for her colouring, which was that of her father, even if she did not know it.  
  
(Seeing him, looking at her through their daughter's eyes, sometimes was a blessing, but others it did hurt like hell.)  
  
Years passed without a threat, and Joanne could live to see Delia grow, and fall in love with a boy that, in many ways reminded her of the man she loved what now seemed a long time ago.  
  
The boy's name is Paul Treves and even if he amusingly tall, he approaches her as if he were a nervous little mouse, explaining that he loves Delia more than anything in this world, and if Mrs Selwyn gives her approval, he intends to marry her daughter.  
  
Of course, she gives it. She knows, in the deep of her heart, that the boy means no harm, and that he will do what it takes to protect her little Delia.  
  
Perhaps, even with all her loses, all her lives and her deaths, Annie has finally found the peace she has been searching for a long time.  
  


**Author's Note:**

> \- I have to admit that once I finished watching the first two seasons of the show, Annie was not the first character I thought of writing about (That would have been Harold Smith), but as I mulled over a potential Twin Peaks fanfic, she began creeping upon my mind and I realised that she was full of possibilities, since we only know the barest bones of her story.  
> \- I might also be a wee bit obsessed with the poetry of both St Teresa of Jesus and St John of the Cross. (At first I even thought of adding the fragments into the original Spanish with a translation into English by yours truly)  
> \- Mother Joan happens to be named after another famous nun and writer (This time from the part of the Virreinato de Nueva España that would later become Mexico), Sor Juana Inés de La Cruz.  
> \- I would add info on the three but then I would spend weeks writing the footnotes. So please, go check them on Wikipedia, because they were awesome  
> \- Yeah, you guessed right, I might have slipped some silly references to other works from Lynch here. Paul's surname, Treves comes from "The Elephant Man". His very own name I picked from "Dune"'s main character, and Mrs Selwyn is, of course, an itty bitty reference to "Mulholland Drive"


End file.
